Tomorrow is the feast day of St Mark the apostle who is called the ” Preacher of The Christian Faith in Egypt “.He was the first one preaching Christianity in Egypt during the period of heathen worshipping along with many religious beliefs of several cultures and philosophies. He established one of the 5 apostolic churches in “Alexandria”, thus he is one of its patriarchs.
He was born in the city of Cyrene in Pentapolis, west of the border of Egypt, that was under the Egyptian rule during the Roman and Greek rule. He was born to a family with origins that dated back to the Leviticus. His mother gave great care to his education teaching him “Greek”, “Latin” and “Hebrews”. He studied the Law and the Prophets. Then His family went back to “Judas” in Palestine to arrange for the Cana of Galilee’s wedding.
The historians indicated that the return of St Mark’s family was at the beginning of Jesus Christ’s Service. He saw Jesus and heard His Teachings and witnessed His Miracles. He was one of the 70 apostles chosen by Jesus, according to many historians like Al-Maqrizi. St Mark’s house, where Jesus has eaten the dinner of Passover with his disciples, is considered the first church in the whole world, as mentioned by all the Christian sects as the Cardinall Paronious wrote that the Saint’s house was the place where Jesus Christ’s men and disciples settled…and that house was the first Christian church.
St Mark enlightens the land of Al-kinanah:
St Mark started his Episcopal service with the apostles. He preached with St. Peter the apostle in Jerusalem and with St. Paul and St. Barnabas the apostles in their first missionary journey, then he went back to Jerusalem “Al Quds”, Afterwards he went with Apostle Barnabas to Antioch and Cyprus. His chief missionary was in Africa: The Pentapolis, Alexandria and the Egyptian cities where he founded the See of Alexandria that extended after his martyrdom to include Noba, Sudan and Ethiopia.
St Mark arrived to Alexandria after walking along period of time on his feet. His shoe got torn, so he searched for a shoemaker to mend his shoe. He found someone called Anianus and while he was mending the shoe, the needle cut his finger and he screamed out of pain ‘O’ the One God’. The saint healed him miraculously then he talked him and his family into Christianity.
St Mark went across the whole country preaching Christianity, thus it was spread so quickly and a huge number of people believed in it. As a result, the heathens hated him more and waited for a good chance to kill him. They managed to do so during the Christians’ celebration of the Resurrection in 68A.D.They attacked the church, arrested St Mark pulling him on the streets, the roads and passages of the city. Thus, his body was torn and his pure blood was shed on the land of Egypt till he was martyred. They didn’t even stop but they wanted to burn his body. But God’s providence prevented them from doing this forbidden deed as a great wind blew and heavy rain fell putting down the fire and dispersing people. Many believers took the body of their father, St Mark, and buried him at the church known by his name in Alexandria.
The principles that St Mark showed during his life were goodness, righteousness that are necessary in man’s life. “Philo”, the philosopher, said that during that period, believers’ life was spent on reading the Holy books, meditating and praying till sunset, along with generous giving without limits.
St Mark was keen on stopping heathen’s beliefs through contrastive comparison of ideas and reason. Alexandria was one of the most important cities of culture and trading and was a destination to many philosophers and scholars from all over the world. Thus, he founded Alexandria School of Theology to be a place of teaching theological studies along with philosophy, logic, medicine, engineering, music…etc. It earned wide fame and was visited by many famous scholars and philosophers from all over the world. This school opposed different kinds of ideas of that age and for many following generations.
Anba Ermiah,
General Bishop& President of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
